


Three Times That Minerva McGonagall Provided Excellent Pastoral Care

by Gunderpants



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, HBP era, Lame Teacher Ruminations, MWPP, Multi, Platonic friendships, PoA era, Pottermore canon compliant, the pathologically passive aggressive meet the blunt-as-a-two-by-four
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-20 12:26:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2428751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gunderpants/pseuds/Gunderpants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Minerva McGonagall has a series of difficult conversations with a student, a colleague, and a friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. March 1977

**Author's Note:**

> The first fic I have written in over six years. Inspired by numerous conversations with students.

Educational fads swirled through the teaching practices of the Hogwarts staff at varying times - though always a good five years after they were fashionable in the Muggle world. 

They were invariably introduced by a well-intentioned - though totally naive - Muggle parent who strived to comprehend what their magical child was actually doing in school. Albus Dumbledore, ever the innovator, entertained the follies for sure (students who graduated between 1966 and 1972 remembered, somewhat bitterly, about writing a lyric poem for their Arithmancy NEWT exam). 

Minerva McGonagall, on the other hand, maintained a simpler teaching philosophy: know your content; be patient and honest with the students; and the children will one day leave, and were never your friends or surrogate children in the first place.

She watched, thin-lipped, as younger, less confident colleagues came and went, each applying different strategies in forming their teaching identity. Some were excessively lax in their discipline, hoping to impress upon the children their coolness and ability to relate to them. Without fail, those were the ones burning out of teaching by the end of their fifth year. Some relied on the cachet of having been a professional Quidditch career to endear themselves to their young charges. Those too saw themselves in a Ministry position and out of the classroom before too long. She despised of the hugs, the elaborate handshakes, the nicknames, the over-familiarity and the eventual fallout: young people who could not trust their elders, and teachers who could not respect their pupils. 

As Head of House, she was in a position to dispense necessary affection and pastoral care where necessary - a pat on the shoulder for a tearful first year was as far as her physical affection could go. Having taught for twenty-one years, she was wise to their schemes for leniency, privileges, and better marks.

This fearful reputation she'd cultivated over the years, however, was only ever sporadically successful in dissuading students from grubbing for grades.

"Come on," Sirius Black said, running his hand through his fringe as his other hand jabbed at a scroll of parchment on her classroom desk. "How is that not worth an extra point?"

She looked up at him, lowering the glasses on her nose despite knowing that this was a gesture wasted on a child like Black, who'd received the glasses-of-doom look far too frequently already for it to be remotely effective. It was already racing past afternoon tea time, and she would be very disappointed if she couldn't take a break before the evening of marking and duty ahead of her. "Mr Black, you received 99% on this exam. You topped the year. Be satisfied."

"Let's go, Pads," James Potter moaned, leaning back on his desk. "Give it up."

"You bragged that you didn't even study for this one," whined Peter Pettigrew. "Like we actually fall for that anyway. You just want people to _think_ you don't give a stuff. Meanwhile, the rest of us genuinely slave away for a rotten 62%."

"You have improved significantly," Minerva said gently to him. "Even if you were only getting 60% last year, the fact that you have maintained your mark despite the curriculum becoming more challenging means you are learning. You should be satisfied with your efforts."

"Yes, well, I'm not."

"Let's go," James said, tugging at Sirius's robes. "I want to go down to the kitchens before training and get something to eat."

Sirius flashed what he thought was a winning smile at Minerva. Had it been anyone else, it would have been. "What do you say, eh? One more little point. Nobody has to know."

"It would not be fair to the other students."

"If you do this for me," Sirius said, an eager smile revealing white teeth, "I promise I will never go out of bounds again. For the rest of this term."

"You're not supposed to go out of bounds anyway, you berk. You can't promise that you'll do something _you already should be doing_ if you want to bribe a teacher."

"Mr Potter has the lay of the land on this one," she said, struggling to hide a smile of her own lest the children see her facade crack even for a moment. "It is time to go. If you are so worried about a single mark, then you ought actually complete the homework I set for tonight."

"Oh. I hadn't planned to do that." 

"There are twenty points available for that. You mean to tell me you were going to waste my afternoon arguing for a single point when you had no intention of completing something far more valuable?"

"All right, old woman," he said, jovially brushing her arm. "No need to get worked up."

"Potter, Pettigrew, remove your friend from my classroom before he becomes a further liability."

Peter took Sirius by the arm. "Time to go, mate. It is over. You were against a far worthier opponent than any one of us."

Sirius wrenched himself out of Peter's grip. "I can walk myself out." And with that, he stomped his feet for effect as he exited the Transfiguration room. "You have just made a very powerful enemy," he shouted in retreat.

"I am sure when I meet him I will be very frightened. Goodbye, boys."

Her room was silent for only a few minutes again before her marking was once again interrupted by a quiet knock on the door. She looked up to see a thin, weary figure at the entrance to the room.

"You wrote on my parchment that you wanted to talk to me about my result?"

She beckoned Remus over. "I thought you would have come in with your friends a minute ago."

"I wanted no part of that rabble," he admitted as he lowered himself slowly into the chair opposite her desk. "Ignore me: muscle soreness."

"Are you all right? Do you need to go to the hospital wing?"

"No, this always happens after the full moon. I just hyper-extend all the tendons and ligaments. It makes climbing stairs a bit painful, though."

Twenty-one years of experience gave her the ability to tell when a student was being deliberately light and airy in their conversation to mask deeper worries. He was thin as ever, light brown hair falling greasily over his forehead. 

"Remus." She summoned the pile of scrolls, leaving through them until she came to the shortest, thinnest scroll of all of them. "You've looked at your mark?"

"I was satisfied with it, I think."

"I wanted to check in that you were all right. It is a significant backwards leap to go from scoring 80% averages down to 51%."

"Can't believe I wasted that extra one percent," he said, chuckling hollowly. 

Minerva narrowed her eyes, and rolled the parchment back up. "You know the pass mark for the final NEWT next year is 70%?"

"I do." He rubbed his face with his hands, and when he stopped his bloodshot eyes stared at her. "Please, don't take this mark as a personal reflection of how I value the subject, I--"

"I know." She reached for her tin, and pulled the lid off. "Biscuit?"

He shook his head. "Not hungry."

"I don't just offer these to any old student," she said, feigning insult in an attempt to create levity. "These - these are my grandmother's recipe, these ones."

Remus Lupin was not the sort of child who liked to offend anyone, and he took one with thanks. When he chewed it, she got the impression he was barely even tasting it.

"So long as you are satisfied with the mark you earned. Obviously, I am aware of your capabilities, and in the event that you need to do a resit next year--"

"Yes, I would so hate to be precluded from all those terrific occupations available to me because of my marks," he said, bitterly.

She frowned. "Surely you are not going to throw away all your schooling because of--"

"What? My complete unemployability?"

"You know that what faces you - what faces all of us - once you have left school is far more grave than not having a job." She leaned forward, a half-eaten biscuit in her hand. "Your written marks might not be outstanding, but on your practical tests you are still in the top five in the year. Don't presume that what you learn here in class won't be of use in the tribulations ahead of us. People have already died. I would be unprofessional and remiss, as a teacher, if I let my students leave less than fully prepared for the world outside."

He nodded quietly. "I am sorry I let you down, Professor. School isn't really on my mind."

"I know." She set the biscuit down. "How is she going?"

"Fine," he said, the pitch of his voice high and strained. "She is still technically a muggle resident, and she qualifies for their free health care."

"Was there anything our kind can do?"

He shook his head. "No. Nothing. It will be fine, I am sure."

He didn't look sure. He still clutched the remainder of his biscuit so tightly it was starting to shed crumbs down the front of his shirt. 

Of all the children in her house, he was the one she'd had most to do with in a pastoral sense. She remembered walking him, for the first time, to the Shrieking Shack - him, pale-faced and resolute, politely declining a need to hold her hand - and then back from it, his body wrapped in a sheet, his face so calm for a face covered in scratches and shallow cuts. She'd been swayed by his stoicism and relatively easy transition into the school, and for the longest time presumed he would be resilient enough to withstand challenges thrown at his way: academic, social, and eventually in terms of leadership.

She watched him brush the crumbs from his front, and for a moment the maternal urge to brush the hair out of his eyes overtook her. 

In the last twelve months, she had come to realise he hadn't been able to meet the expectations of being a prefect. It wasn't entirely his fault: the fact that he fatigued easily, and was physically unavailable for a good quarter of the term, was enough of a hindrance. It was a change of attitude, however, that had done the greatest damage to his potential for Head Boy. While his peers spent their days comparing the entry requirements for various post-school pathways, he could only but watch and remark bitterly, his own future so desolate, and with every passing day approaching him more and more quickly. While James and Sirius (and to a smaller extent, Peter) entertained girls, she knew for a fact that he would spend his own weekend evenings up in his dormitory, a book open in front of him that he might never actually read.

And what, on first impression, looked like stoicism and reserve was nothing but a cover for resignation and pessimism and fear. And the very worst part was that there was absolutely no solace, no advice, and no guidance that would ever change this, because it was an indelible part of his destiny. Nothing and nobody could ever change that.

"Remus, I'd like to raise the prospect of letting you step down from your prefect duties," Minerva said quietly, her eyes locked on him. 

"Please, I know I haven't been the most present or responsible leader, but--"

"You have too much going on at present to contend with," she replied gently. "I will tell people you approached me, asking if you could be relieved of the position."

"Professor, I--"

Minerva had no children of her own from which to draw experience on. The child in front of her - as much as she established distance between herself and all young people - was nevertheless as close as it ever would be to her own. She saw his thin, pale, lined face cracking with fear and hurt, and her resolve nearly withered. "Please, Remus. It is for your own good."

He took a deep breath, and for a millisecond she worried he might lash out. Instead, he recomposed himself. "May I have until Christmas before you make a decision? I will improve, I promise, I--"

Her resolve finally died. "Yes. Fine. If you are able to earn marks commensurate with what you were earning at the end of last year, I will reconsider my request. But you know I cannot, in good conscience, put you forward as Head Boy next year."

"I know," he said. "James or Sirius would be far better than me."

"You'd be correct one of those," she said, a smile playing at the corner of her lips. "Another biscuit?"

This time, he reached into the tin himself. The deep lines in his forehead had softened, and when he looked up, his eyes seemed clearer and brighter. "Thank you, Professor."

"You're not to tell Sirius that I gave into a student on an issue," she said warily. "I just spent twenty minutes trying to clear him out of here."

"It's in the vault," he said. She peered at him quizzically. "Muggle reference," he said. "Your secret is safe."

 _My father would have liked him,_ she thought to herself. For all his faults, she could not help but like his dry humour. "Your mother - Presbyterian?

"Anglican," he said, shaking his head. "Not that she ever really observed after meeting dad. Definitely not now."

"Of course. I will keep her in my thoughts. You'd better go and complete your homework, if you are keen on keeping that badge."

As he got out of his chair slowly to leave, he caught the crumbs that had fallen Into his lap. "I'll put these in the bin outside."

"Thanks. Have a better afternoon."

She watched him leave, his tall, thin figure casting a monstrous and skeletal shadow across the floor in his wake. In many ways, he wasn't a child and hadn't been for many years. But it was a brittle, frail grasp he had on adulthood, and she wondered to herself if - in the likely absence of a family or a career to anchor his ego to - he might ever grow up.

She looked sadly at the pile of marking ahead of her, and decided to enjoy her Thursday afternoon out roaming the grounds instead of staying ahead of her paperwork.


	2. September 1993

Despite the fact that the first day of the school year was primarily administrative in function, Minerva McGonagall climbed the steps to her office feeling like she had taught eleven straight classes of fourth year Transfiguration to classes solely comprised of hyperactive doxies. _And to think,_ she wondered to herself, _that there is a whole year ahead of this._

All in all, it had been a reasonably pain-free day in comparison to earlier years: no fights with earnest sixth years who had been excluded from NEWT subjects on account of dismal OWL grades, and no bargaining from the Weasley twins to swap a Friday afternoon Potions class with something - anything - else. Of course, nearly four decades of experience had taught her to never enter into negotiations, and that the broken record approach to having the final word always worked wonders.

She pushed open her door to find a sight she never expected to see: Remus Lupin brazenly leaning over her desk, a ginger newt in his mouth and another in his hand. As soon as he saw the door open, he snapped back in his chair, as if attached to it by a very taut rubber band. "Sorry," he muffled through the biscuit before swallowing his mouthful. "I mean, sorry, Professor."

"You are going to need to learn two things before you leave this office today, Remus. Firstly, stop calling me that. You are no longer a student at this school, and you are not speaking about me in front of children. Secondly-" and she looked pointedly at the tartan tin on her desk, "-- colleague or not, it is a hexing crime to steal a woman's biscuits without her knowledge."

"Really, I am so sorry, I didn't get a chance to eat lunch."

"And why not? If you don't stop to eat, you cannot hope to be an effective teacher." She looked him up and down. _It would take more than a handful of good meals to make him look remotely healthy._ "What stopped you from your break? I was under the impression that you would have only had two lessons scheduled for today."

"Well, I did, but... well, I had behaviour management issues to deal with."

 _Now you know what it feels like._ "Oh? But you only had first and second years. Don't tell me that you - terrifying half-breed from the bowels of most children's nightmares - couldn't frighten some respect out of the little ones on the day where they are going to be most frightened of you?"

He bent over, and when she peered in to ascertain his facial expression she heard him laugh darkly. "I am a joke, Minerva. I cannot believe I ever thought this would be a good idea--"

"Stop. Now." 

He looked up at her, his pale brown eyes bloodshot and bleary once more, his thinning hair sticking out at all angles. "It was dreadful. I have no business being a teacher."

"Drink? Tea, water, firewhiskey?"

"Tea, goodness, please."

With a flick of her wand, a small tin kettle at her bench top filled under a tap. With another flick, steam shot out of the spout. Summoning it carefully, she set the kettle on her desk as she reached for cups in her desk drawer. "Let's start from the beginning - with the little first years. You introduced them to the creatures today, yes?"

Remus gulped down a mouthful of tea. "Gnomes and imps. They read from the textbook, then I got them to sketch from out of the book and then--"

"You're relying on Quirrell's curriculum?"

"I am afraid so. All that was left from my most immediate predecessor was a stack of autographed photos," Remus said, a tiny smile forming, "and a tin of hair wax."

"I apologise for the lack of continuity in the subject." Minerva stood, and reached up to a shelf behind her desk for a jar of sugar lumps. "If there is one thing we still haven't cottoned onto, it is developing a coherent and cohesive work program. But let's return to this lesson: what went wrong?"

"Well..." Remus stared at his hands for a moment. "Well, half of them arrived without parchment or books to write in, and the other half that did turned up without ink and quills. I mean, honestly! And then a Slytherin boy whispered something to the boy beside him, and I know for a fact that it was about my robes--"

"Remus..."

"And then, when I administered the quiz at the end of the lesson to see what they'd learned, the highest mark was only 63%--"

"Remus..."

"And don't even get me started on the second years! By the time the lesson ended, I had to keep in six for lunch detention to write out lines for laughing at Colin Cree--"

"Enough!"

The room fell silent. Awkwardly, Remus resettled his teacup in its saucer, where it made more noise than he probably wanted it to. Minerva sighed, and took off her glasses.

"You must be reasonable in your expectations. Firstly, they are children. Children forget things, and they do the wrong thing with remarkable alacrity. If they didn't, they wouldn't need to come to school."

"Right."

"Secondly, your expectations in terms of their achievement are far too high. You tested them after one lesson, without giving them the benefit of time to process their learning or study. You cannot expect to see good results after that. More to the point, I think you have been spoiled by your own cohort, who were exceptionally bright people. Aside from perhaps Hermione Granger in third year, you will find most students, regardless of their background, are perfectly average, and that is not a mark of you as a teacher."

"But the behaviour--"

"Stop, for a moment, if you can and imagine how you and your friends might have responded to a lesson conducted solely out of a textbook."

"Perhaps you are right."

"Quirinus Quirrell was not such a wonderful teacher that you need be reliant on his program of work - nor his teaching methodology." She leaned in closer to him. "You came to Hogwarts as a child with an exceptional knowledge of dark creatures. How did _you_ happen to learn all this?"

Remus smiled, and picked up the cup in both hands, as if desperate for it to impart some warmth. "My dad and I, he used to take me out with him whenever he was on Ministry work - so long as it wasn't too dangerous in terms of creature or timing. Sometimes, he would even bring them back home with him. He had this giant tank, and he..." He trailed off, and Minerva made eye contact with him again.

"You know from your own experience the importance of the practical aspects of learning - how the textual recreation of a dark creature provides no real preparation for having to defeat it in real life."

"I can do that? Bring them into the classroom and everything?"

"So long as you do not release them into a class full of children like that idiot Lockhart, I would see no problem with it."

"And the Headmaster?"

"If he were to find out, he might very well fight Miss Granger for front seat in the class."

Remus smiled broadly, and drained his cup dry. "You mean I can really write a new program of work for the whole school?"

"Don't look so excited by the prospect. Anybody else would be begging to get out of such a task."

He sprung out of his chair, and set off for the door. "I have to send my father an owl, and see if he can send me his old tank... and there's a Boggart in the school, Dumbledore mentioned it to me this morning, and I--"

"So you'll be all right? No more problems with the classes?"

"Why would there be?" He turned to face her, the look of worry deeply etched earlier now gone. "Minerva, people like you have been so generous here. I can hardly fathom it. You, Severus, Dumbledore... even Sybill offered to tell my fortune for me. I can hardly fathom how kind and welcoming people have been."

She looked up, frowning. "One final lesson to impart onto you before you leave."

"Yes?"

She reached for the biscuits, and pulled one out. "Sybill Trelawney has a very low strike rate of successful fortune telling. However, she is reasonably practiced in the art of cold reading. Do you see where I am going?"

He shook his head. "I am afraid I don't."

"If you are looking to keep your identity safe from students," she said softly, "then a woman skilled at ascertaining a person's life story on the basis of their appearance and reasonably safe guesses is not going to help you much. That stopped clock only has to be right twice a day before you have a real problem on your hands."

"Right." He looked thoughtful. "Can you please not mention to Dumbledore that we had this conversation? I... well, I--"

"I am sure he wouldn't mind knowing that your sought to improve how you work in the classroom," she said, her face grave and serious, "but I will stay quiet on this."


	3. June 1997

Robert McGonagall had been a fan of the phrase 'bone-weary' and Minerva had heard it so many times while young. When he died, still a young man, he had died bone-weary: bone-weary of the increasing coldness and distance towards her mother, though he'd hidden it well; bone-weary of three precocious young children who bore powers he himself lacked; bone-weary of nights spent sleepless, worried about the fate of the four souls in his household he was sure would never take their place with him in the afterlife.

And now, she felt it too. Forty-six hours awake, and finally the madness downstairs was starting to settle. Kingsley Shacklebolt took over from her in liaising with the Ministry, and the owls from angry and fearful parents had started to abate. 

She was not accustomed to going up to bed at five in the morning - if she'd been able to get away sooner, she would have. But there was so much to do - so many terrified children, so many questions unanswered, and in his absence she helmed a rudderless ship straight into an impending squall. 

The handle to her office stuck a little as she turned it, and stepping inside the glare from her windows hit her eyes as the sun hung at the horizon. Before she had the chance to set her cloak on a chair and divest herself of uncomfortable clothing, she heard deep, steady breathing coming from her bed.

She took a moment of pause. Her bowels tightened, and she forced her footsteps to be softer as she inched further into her room. On the floor were a scuffed, beaten pair of brogues, discarded to the ground with the laces still tied - as if their owner had been too tired or impatient to untie them. A set of robes lay beside them, and she picked them up, looking closely at them. They were in the worst condition of all: the weft of the fabric attenuated terribly and ladders formed behind the shoulders. There were old patches of repair here and there, but they were old and only sporadically fixed, their owner having long since given up on their upkeep.

The knot in her guts loosened. The red, green and black of the Ross tartan was spread messily over her bed, and at the end on the pillow lay a shock of greasy, light brown hair with strands of grey that glinted with the faint beams of sunlight that fell on the pillow.

On her desk lay a torn sheet of paper. Trembling, she reached for it. The handwriting was scratchy and rushed, ink blotted messily all over the clean expanses of white. _Put him in here to sleep. Made a mess of Snape's office. Kingsley sorted him out. AM._

She crumpled the paper and let it drop onto her desk. The rays of light had inched further now: it would be only minutes before they would hit his eyes and wake him up.

Minerva considered, for a moment, drawing the curtains shut a little to afford him another few hours of sleep, but then thought better of it. She sat gingerly on the bed beside him. A large, painful-looking weal had formed on his forehead; his hands bore dozens of tiny little cuts. Under the blanket, she guessed he had wrapped himself around the second pillow on her bed and was clinging to it like it was the world's weakest life jacket. 

The sun crept along the pillow; his lined forehead was now illuminated. She held her hand up to block the sun from his eyes, her breath ragged and halting, her forearm muscles burning with exertion, her eyelids gritty and dry against her eyes. And then the sun peaked through a tiny gap in her fingers, and pierced his eyelids.

His eyelids twitched. A frown formed on his face. He groaned, turning further towards the wall.

Nearly twenty years had passed since he had been her student, and yet the pit worn into her stomach with guilt and annoyance kept gnawing at her. She didn't know whether she felt pity, or frustration, or anger, or betrayal at finding a student in her room - _in her own bed_. "Are you awake?"

"Don't make me go back out there." His voice was so hoarse and soft she barely heard him. 

She leant in close. "When did you come in here?"

"I don't remember coming up here. All I remember was I was in... I was in his office, and I turned around, and Kingsley and Alastor were in the doorway, and now I am here."

She brushed an oily lock of hair away from the weal. He winced. "Did you fight them?"

"I can't remember. I hope I didn't. That's the last thing we need right now, not with everything."

"Alastor left a note for me. I am sure he will be accepting of any amends you wish to make." She patted him on the arm. "Now up. I need sleep, and I need my bed to sleep in."

"Is she out there?"

"You are going to need to be more specific. There are over three hundred girls in the school, you know that, not to mention the female staff and Molly--"

" _You know who I am talking about._ " This time, she was startled by the violent hiss in his whisper. She could tell his eyes were now wide open, though not looking at her: instead they stared straight ahead at the wall, bloodshot and bleary.

"To my knowledge, no. Scrimgeour has called all Aurors back to the Ministry for briefing."

With this, he pulled himself upright, and turned around. His bare feet hung over the edge of the bed, not touching the ground. His shirt was filthy, with yellow patches around his neck and under his arms, and brown tea stains dripped down the front. Three weeks of grizzled, dirty growth clung to his jowls and neck, and dust had settled into his pores and hair follicles. She hoped he would not see the grimace on her face as she imagined her beautifully laundered sheets damp and heavy with sweat and dirt.

"I don't understand anything. I don't know what is wrong with her. Has someone hit her with a curse, or slipped something in her drink, or--"

"Remus, that is enough. I think she is in her right mind."

A sickly silence hung above them. She watched his Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallowed repeatedly. "She cannot be."

Minerva McGonagall had taught for thirty-nine years. She had watched the children in her house be cast off into the wild like dandelion seeds - to die, to grow up, to have children, to take hold in a fertile field and forget her and never return. And he was the straggling seed who blew only a few meters away, dashed against the unforgiving rocky ground, only to blow back closer with the wind. Of all her students she had had him for the longest time: longer than his own mother had had him before her passing. All the wrinkles and facial hair and grey couldn't take away the childish fear in his eyes, and she permitted herself to let her hand sit on his arm.

"In an ideal world, what would you do?"

He swallowed again, mulling over his choice of words. "I don't think it will ever--"

"That wasn't the question I asked you. Remember those points you lost in your NEWT because you gave the answer you wanted to give - rather than answering the question as it was asked? This is such a time again."

"To be ideal, I would have been born ten years later, I would be well, employed, I would have friends--"

"Am I chopped liver?"

"Right. Sorry."

She smiled, and her hand grip tightened on his arm. "You seem to be taking the prospect of someone loving you very badly. I didn't know she offended you so much--"

"She doesn't offend me."

"Then if you are so indifferent to her, then she might understand. Tell her how you feel. She will come to accept it."

"You know it is not indifference."

"If it makes you feel better, though," she said, shifting on the bed to sit beside him, leaning back against the wall to stop herself from being blinded by the dawn sunlight, "marrying someone you are only indifferent about is hardly the worst thing ever. In fact, the companionship can be downright entertaining sometimes."

"Truly?"

"Elphinstone was remarkably good company, all things said. Rest his soul, he had a knack for conversation and conviviality. Sometimes, I would have to drag him from Albus's office myself after a long night."

"Minerva," he said, continuing to stare straight ahead at the wall, "are you a Legilimens?"

"If there is one thing I like not being able to do as a teacher of hormonal teenagers," she said, playing with a tassel on her blanket, "it is being able to delve into their thoughts."

"And yet you know what my thoughts are enough."

"A rough guess."

"Do you know how I learned Snape was a Legilimens? I knew before the others: in fact, I told Dumbledore to use him with Harry."

She sat up straight and looked at him. "I never knew that part."

"I know because he used it on me."

"When?"

"Early last year. He'd come to brief us on the movements of the Lestranges after their escape. It was late, I was tired, I was not in the mood to focus my mind at the topic at hand."

The sun was now up, and her office became uncomfortably warm. She shifted the blanket off her lap. "What was on your mind?"

"I was daydreaming and trying to keep from falling asleep. My eyes were wandering all over that kitchen: I was trying to read the words on recipe books on shelves, count the lumps of charcoal in the fireplace, and at one point, they settled on--"

" _Her?_ "

"Yes. Her. She was sitting right across from me, pulling the broken ends off her hair. Every so often, she'd make eye contact with me. She wouldn't say or mouth anything, or make any facial expressions, but she would... Almost talk with her eyes. If that were possible. And my mind started to drift into a place it probably shouldn't have. I hope you don't mind if I don't elaborate on the exact content of those thoughts."

She recalled a lonely teenager, up in his dorm alone on his weekend as his friends gallivanted about the countryside with girls. "I don't mind at all."

"I must have been careless. I was so tired and wound up in my thoughts that I mustn't have noticed making eye contact with Sev-- with him. Then the meeting was over, and I was the second last one out of the kitchen, and almost at the stairs when he called to me.

"I didn't turn around to see him, but I could imagine the smirk on his face when he spoke to me. He said -- actually, I think it's unnecessary to mention what he'd said to me, in line with the subject matter."

She only noticed then that his hands had bunched into fists, her sheets squeezing out between his fingers. "I never knew."

"He has taken so much from me. He took my friends from me, my job, my mentor. All I wanted, all I had left was my mind and my thoughts, no matter how inappropriate or unseemly they may be, they were mine and I deserved to have them kept as secret as I wanted them." His jaw clenched. "I loathe him. So much. All these years, all I did was trust him, and try to treat him better than he treated me, and--"

"You'll tear my good sheets."

He relaxed his hands. "I never told anyone. I don't believe he ever did, either. But what he'd seen, Minerva, it... I have never felt so disgraced, and ashamed. It was so disgusting, I hate to think of what she would say if she ever knew what I imagined her doing to me, with me--"

"I think," Minerva said, after taking a few moments to find the precise words, "she might feel vindicated that her feelings are not unrequited." She pulled herself to her feet, disappointed in how slowly and painfully she moved, and sat down at her desk. "You know, normal people think of sex quite often."

Remus blushed. "You don't have to be so forward about it."

"For heaven's sake, you're not the first teary student up here in this office asking for advice."

"Well, I don't remember asking you any questions at all!"

"You come in here, you leave with advice. Thus, as it has always been." She leaned forward, and softened her voice. "Stop thinking that your thoughts, your feelings, make you more monstrous than you already perceive yourself to be. Falling in love, thinking about another person in that way, remain some of the most humanising experiences one might ever get to have." 

She pulled her wand from her belt, and pointed it at him, whispering softly. The weal on his forehead softened and blurred, the angry red edges fading into the rest of his pallid skin. "Go to her," she whispered. "The number of loved ones we have is dwindling by the day."

"But I cannot, I... If you were in my position, you'd understand."

And yet she had been. And she did. She said nothing on the topic, and her own mind wandered for a moment to a stocky, well-built young man who sat on a stone fence waiting for her every day in the afternoon. 

Grief is like being cast adrift in a small, oar-less boat in a current: the shoreline, the loved one, the current, the time. And the time would pull and pull, sometimes maddeningly reversing in a strong tide or wind to allow the boat to drift, for an hour or two, close back to the shore. But eventually, inevitably, the boat would be borne so far from the shore that the grieved could never see it again, much less remember the distinct details of the horizon. And much was the same with Dougal: she no longer could recall the details of his face, or the swirling pattern of hair growth. He had become an amalgam of thirty different people she had known since his passing. 

"I give you my word," she stammered, trying to hide the cracking of her voice by speaking low and soft, "that if you do not you may bitterly regret the decision. And as much as you protest, you would break if she were to be with none else. All you would be left with are fading memories of imagined moments that will become less and less distinct with the passage of time. For goodness sake, do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. _Go to her_."

He stood, unsteady on his feet, finally making eye contact. His eyes were clearer and brighter. "Where, and how--"

"You'll need to Apparate to four miles south of Caithness. My brother Malcolm runs a pub up there. Attached is a guest house." She flicked her wand in the direction of her top desk draw, and from it summoned a dusty, green velvet pouch. "I don't get a chance to visit often, but say you know me and present to him this key and you won't need to pay board. I recommend you--"

Her sentence was cut off as - for the first time in her life - Remus Lupin embraced her in a close hug, his bony arms pressing her into his chest tightly.

Neither spoke for minutes. After a while, she let her arms wrap around his thin waist, and she barely even noticed the stink of his shirt or the stains around his neck. She felt his breath on her scalp, and moved with the slow, steady rhythm of his breathing. 

"I have wanted to do that for a while," he said, eventually breaking it off while holding her arms gently. "And I worry if I don't now, I may not get the chance again."

"May I finish what I was saying?"

"I just hugged you. I have never seen you hug anyone. As far as I know, on your wedding night you celebrated with your husband with a very cordial pat on the back."

" _My_ wedding night is not the subject of discussion."

"Sorry, Professor."

"If I might impart wisdom from my own experience, often the regret of not doing outweighs the regret of an action willingly performed."

"But if she says no--"

"The poor bairn has visited me enough this year to talk that I am absolutely confident in telling you she will say yes."

"But if I hurt her--"

"You are causing her more hurt by denying her than you ever might by being with her. And by the by, I am sure you'd not have fallen for her if she'd been the kind of person easily hurt."

He clutched at the velvet bag in both hands, as if drawing warmth from it. His eyes were lit with fear now at a very real danger in his path. 

"Remus, do you want this?"

"Why are you asking a question you already know the answer to?"

"To force you to say it."

He closed his eyes, and his grip on the bag tightened so much that the skin stretched taut over his knuckles went white. His response escaped in a rasp: " _ever so much._ "

And with that, Minerva uncharacteristically for herself reached towards him and held him herself. "Put your cloak on and leave. Go straight to the Burrow - clean yourself up, borrow some clothes from Arthur Weasley. You have a funeral to attend in two days, and hopefully not long after that a wedding."

He pulled away from her. "I... Minerva, I love y--"

"Sweet lord, just put your shoes and cloak on already and _go_ already. If I do not get some sleep soon, I cannot be held responsible for my actions."

"Right," he said in a forced somber tone.

"And if you breathe another word to a single soul that I so much as offered you a glass of water, much less held a former student in my arms for even a moment, I will leave you petrified in a field with a note to the Death Eaters and a box of chocolate cauldrons to thank them for a job well done."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." He tied his laces quickly, his fingers trembling as he rushed to double-knot his shoes. "And you can confirm that secrecy with a biscuit. I mustn't have eaten in over a day, I dare say."

She reflexively reached for her tin, but a glimmer of a memory halted her hand. She visualised the inside of the tin, empty save for a circle of wax paper and crumbs. "Oh, no..."

"No biscuits?"

She looked up at him grimly. "The last one. I may never forgive myself."

"Dumbledore?"

She shook her head. "Snape."

"The _bastard._ "

"You'll not let him get away with this, Remus."

He stood, wrapping his cloak around his shoulders. "My vengeance will be swift and terrible to behold. In a bit."

"Best of luck," she muttered, as he shut the door to her office for what would be the last time ever in his life.

She lay on her bed, not stopping to remove her outer clothing. And without pulling her sheets over her, she fell asleep, not caring a whit that the sunlight continued to stream on her face.


End file.
